Rep. Flores on impeachment inquiry: ‘It’s a dark day for America’

On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced a formal impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, KBTX's D.C. Bureau caught up with Rep. Bill Flores (R-District 17) who represents most of the Brazos Valley in the House of Representatives.

Speaker Pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry yesterday. How are House Republicans reacting to it? How are you reacting to it?

Well, I am worried about the future of the American people because the speaker is violating our rule of law process in this country. She violated the Constitution by moving forward based on hearsay evidence. They haven’t even read the transcript until today. The other thing is that she can’t launch an impeachment inquiry without a full vote from the House of Representatives. So she’s trying to invent new law, not only in terms of the way the House operates but also in terms of legal standards of trying to find somebody guilty. Really, it’s a dark day for America, but you know what’s even worse about it, is what are the things that aren’t going to get done that would make life better for Americans? We need to work on prescription drug prices. We need to pass the USMCA trade deal with Mexico and Canada. We need to deal with the crisis on our southern border. We need to work on health care. We need to continue all of those types of things. That’s all going to be shunted to the side while she pursues this witch hunt. And really, it’s a continuation of a witch hunt that started back in November of 2016 because they don’t like the outcome of that election.

How do you think this is going to impact 2020 and how Texans will be voting in 2020?

Well, I think what they did yesterday was they gave the speaker’s gavel to a Republican, probably [Rep.] Kevin McCarthy [R-Calif.], they gave the White House to [President] Donald Trump. They have gone so far beyond what’s reasonable, what the American people expect in terms of fairness, and dealing in a Constitutional way that follows the law. They’ve gone so far beyond those things that I just don’t—I think they’re going to pay the price for it come November 2020.

Anything else you want to add?

I hope that the Democrats will come to their senses and back away from this and realize once they’ve read the transcript that that provides them the fallback position to come back and say, “We didn’t find anything in the transcript that indicates that the president did anything wrong; therefore, we’re going to suspend all of this impeachment inquiry, all the impeachment talk, all the investigations and get back to doing something that’s right for the American people.”